


Miserere

by justmariamay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Flashbacks, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hallucinations, Hurt No Comfort, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Lucifer and Michael are Twins, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mistaken Identity, Self-Destruction, Sexual Content, Sibling Incest, Twincest, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-04-25 17:02:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4969093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justmariamay/pseuds/justmariamay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucifer died in a car crash. Yet it is Michael who is put in the coffin, buried and forgotten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fortuna

"Michael is dead."

He is lying in hospital bed. Drop counter is attached to his vein. His head hurts. His throat is sore. Otherwise his body is numb. His sixteen years old sister is sitting at his bedside and crying.

Michael is dead. It's ridiculous, it's not true, because... because he is Michael! He's sure he is, but he isn't able to tell that, words are stuck in his burning throat, like a thick disgusting lump that won't move up or down. Because if he is Michael, then... then Lucifer is tho one who died. No... Michael is so confused. Just minutes ago Lucifer was sitting on the driver seat... and shouting at Michael. Lucifer often shouts at him... damn.

"Lucifer? Lucifer!"

He snaps out. But doesn't look at the source of the voice. Because he is not Lucifer. He feels sick. He wishes it was quiet. But everything is so unbearably loud in his head. Thin hand lays over his covered with many small cuts and squeezes it.

"Lucifer, please look at me," Raphael begs. Lucifer never could refuse her, nor could Michael. He has to tell her now...

"Rapha..." the rest drowned in dry painful cough.

She squeezes his hand tighter.

"Don't speak. You had gas-poisoning and..." she stops and looks at him with her tear-stained face and after a pause says: "And two broken ribs, concussion, few deep cuts... not to mention you are all black and blue, but..." she looks down. "You're alive, Lucifer..."

 _I am Michael_ , he tries to say. But it doesn't sound right, only awful rale.

He makes an attempt to sit up, but it wouldn't be successful without Raphael's help. She sits on his bed and hugs him very carefully, like he is about to fall apart. There is fleeting sharp pain in his his chest and then it's gone. Gone...

"He's gone, Lucifer, he's gone," his sister is sobbing into his shoulder. "And Dad... Dad just hid in his office with a bottle of whiskey like he always does and I don't know what to do! Gabe said he's coming, but he is not here yet! I-" her voice lowers to whisper. "I don't want to go home. Only uncle Zachariah is around and he's busy with... " she gulps, "...with the funeral."

Raphael calms down little by little. And Michael is too concentrated on her to think or try to say anything again. He doesn't have enough energy to do more than one task at the moment. Michael gives up. He can't speak. All he can do is drawing small circles on Raphael's back and feel her warmth prickling on the end of his numb fingers. Drowsiness is taking over him in waves. He can't keep his eyes opened. He doesn't hope that this is only a dream. His memory is not that clear, but he remembers what happened.

******

"Michael! Stop ignoring me!" Lucifer never could take silent treatment for long.

Michael sighed and turned his eyes from the window to Lucifer. His twin was clutching the wheel of his car and driving them home. No, it wasn't Michael's home anymore.

"I can't believe you!" Lucifer exclaimed for fifth time. "You don't just do that without talking to me! What... What did I do wrong this time?"

"It's not about you," Michael said quietly. He should have been angry, maybe even angrier than his brother. He wasn't.

"Well, it's about you, therefore it's about me too!" Lucifer's logic in its finest. "Why couldn't you just talk to me first?!" he aggressively turned the wheel and another empty street appeared on the other side of the wind shield. There was a rare car on the road. It was Saturday and it was still very early.

Lucifer thought it would be so easy. Just... talk. But...

"When was the last time we could just talk?" asked Michael seriously. From his seat he saw Lucifer greet his teeth. Because the answer was - too long ago.

"So you thought it was good idea to leave me?" Lucifer didn't relent.

"No, of course not," admitted Michael.

Lucifer sharply brake at the traffic light. Michael hoped to return before Lucifer woke up.

"Then what?" he looked at Michael and his eyes reflected Michael's, absolutely same shape and colour.

"You know what," words were empty, but Michael didn't want to explain. His eyes looked just as empty reflected in Lucifer's. "Green light," he noted.

Lucifer pressed the gas pedal.

Lucifer was driving Michael's car. He was wearing Michael's jacket. There was Michael's train ticket in the pocket of that jacket and Michael's bag in the back of that car ...

******

Next time Michael wakes up he is able to speak. But he doesn't want to. How? How can he tell them they made a mistake and Lucifer is dead? Especially when it was his fault. Michael has no delusions about that. If he didn't... If he wasn't... If, if, if! So many if's. But can there be a conjunctive mood in the past? Too late.

Michael is lucky, he stayed alive, no irreversible damage, but the funny thing is... Michael has never been the lucky one out of two. So maybe this is not luck at all.  
Nurse told him his friends came. Lucifer's friends of course. Michael himself has very few friends. And now they think he's dead.

Raphael comes and stays for hours. She doesn't cry. They don't speak.

Dad comes. Michael can't look at him when he rubs his shoulder and tells him what a blessing it is, that he survived.

Numbness doesn't go anywhere. Probably the painkillers.

In two days he will be able to leave hospital or so he's told. With strict prescriptions but nonetheless. He will go home. But as much as he hates this place, this smell of death and disease that hides beneath chlorine and cleanliness, he isn't ready. Will he ever be?

Michael never thought he could be such a coward. Well, he wasn't. Until last few months showed him otherwise.

******

Michael was pushing random buttons on the terminal screen. Anywhere. Today. As soon as possible before he changed his mind. The device prints him a ticket and Michael shoves it into a pocket without looking. But as he walked outside to his car he understood he wouldn't go anywhere.

His brother was right there, sitting on the hood of the black car, smoking and looking about to murder someone. Presumably Michael.

Michael is stunned. Not because Lucifer found him so easily, part of him expected it. It's the way Lucifer is. Pajama pants, t-shirt he slept in, bed hair, barefoot... To say he was in hurry would be an understatement. Idiot. He could at least put on a jacket. Michael didn't say anything, just threw his jacket on Lucifer's shoulders and sat next to him. Lucifer ran his hand through his hair in attempt to smooth it then snubbed his cigarette out.

"What the fuck, Michael? What the fuck?"

Edge in his voice like he was struggling not to scream. It was so strange, like Lucifer really tried to contain himself for once.

Michael only shrugged.

******

"There was Michael's stuff in the car. Where was he going?"

"I don't know," he croaks. He really didn't know, he just needed to be away for a while.

Uncle Zachariah has come to pick him up. He's glad it's not Dad, he wouldn't be able to look him in the eye. Maybe he can tell uncle that he is Michael? Uncle Zach will easily explain everything. Concussion, painkillers, confusion, grief... Michael has all the reasons, but he doesn't have power to say it all before his family. Somehow he feels like he will wrong them all once he admits he's alive and Lucifer is dead. But Zachariah is a lower with decades of experience. And Michael knows he won't blame him. But he thinks that others will. Still it feels like it is his only chance and he has to take it.

"I broke into your apartment and brought you some clothes," uncle puts a plastic bag on the bed. "Able to dress on your own?"

"Yeah, I can handle that," he even manages to smile a little.

"Suit yourself, kiddo. I'll wait outside."

Michael is left alone. He is only happy to get rid of this annoying white robe and cover cuts and bruises with something else. But it's not his clothes in the bag. It's Lucifer's. Michael shouldn't be surprised. But it's a bit too much.  
With shut eyes he puts on shabby jeans ignoring pain in his chest. It's actually very frightening how well they fit Michael. And then there is a shirt. Simple black long-sleeved t-shirt. Only it's Lucifer's. And it smells like Lucifer. Michael can't help burying his nose in soft overlaundered fabric. There it is, faint smell of tobacco that soaked into all of his brother's clothes, cologne mixed with fabric softener, and that unique smell ever present on Luce's skin. Nobody knows how familiar Michael is with this smell, how it wouldn't leave him for half a day after some nights. He never even liked this smell, not really, but he was pathologically addicted to it.

He slipped into the shirt and every single thing about it was so wrong. Like he has just crawled into somebody else's skin and it fits like his own.

Enveloped into this damned smell Michael finally realizes. Lucifer is gone. Forever. They won't talk ever again. They won't fight ever again. They won't make up. They won't hate each other and they won't love each other ever again. Now all of this is one sided and it hurts like hell. Michael clasps his shaking hand over his mouth before a single sound can pass his chapped lips.

_No. Stop. Don't. Not here. Not now. Not like this..._

Another hand grips the edge of the bed for support, but his unstable legs betray him. He is falling, crashing, breaking, waning, dying... All the physical pain in his bruised body seems like nothing compared to the devastation growing and raging behind his broken ribs. He curls into himself on the cold hospital floor and surrenders to tears.


	2. Timor

Zachariah is diplomatically silent about the delay, when Mihcael exits the ward. He feels so terrifyingly comfortable in his dead brother's clothes. But he emptied himself to the point he can't give a damn.

Michael occupies the back seat of uncle's car and starts flexing his fingers and wrists to return some mobility to them. As Zach starts the engine he notices his reflection in driver's mirror and really sees himself for the first time after the accident. He avoided looking in the mirror in hospital bathroom these few days. He knew he looked bad without checking. He still does. Left side of his face is blue and green and a bit swollen, left eye is completely red from burst blood vessels, cuts on his lip, his cheeks, brow and even neck. There was a lot of glass. He wonders if he will be recognized as Michael when it all heals. Ah, yes, he was going to tell Zachariah...

"Uncle, I..."

But he can't finish the sentence. Zach suddenly slams on the brakes, swears loudly and send an angry series of honks to the white Audi that cut them up. The brake chatter, honks, it makes Michael's heart stop for a second.

******

"Shit!" Lucifer shouted and turned the steering wheel with all he got.

A freaking gasoline tanker missed the red light and was going to broadside them and they would avoid the crash if not for another car on the road, suddenly appearing right in front of them as Lucifer turned Michael's Ford.

It felt like time stopped and thousands of thoughts crossed Michael's mind. Roads are empty at this hour, why was this happening? Why Lucifer had to go search for him? Why did Michael let him drive them home? Why didn't Michael leave sooner? Why???  
So time stopped and then sped up impossibly fast. Like a horrible montage in the movie. Only it was real. And reality hit them hard.

******

"That bastard! You alright there, kid?" uncle sounds worried. He rarely does.

Michael let's out breath he's been holding.

"Yeah... Yeah, I'm fine," it's a lie, a bad one too. But what does it matter when nobody buys it?

He was going to say something, wasn't he? What was it? He can't remember. Something obvious, something important. Or maybe not. His head is pounding after this little shake-up.

"When is the funeral?" wasn't it what he meant to ask?

"After tomorrow," Zachariah sighs. "They should have already fixed Mike's face."

_Fixed his face?_

"How bad it was?" Michael isn't sure he wants to know.

"Half of his skull was just..." Zach doesn't finish. But Michael has an idea what he is talking about.

"What happened to other drivers? The was that gas-tank truck and... a Toyota?"

"They live and too undamaged for my liking. And that gas company paid a compensation without questions, it's the only reason I am not tearing them apart in the courtroom," he sighs and continues. "Truck's brake refused to act. But... It wasn't just an accident, Luce. An insurance fraud, remember I told you about it? You and Michael happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know what that means?"

Michael doesn't. He vaguely remembers Lucifer explaining this kind of fraud to him one evening. Uncle didn't tell anything like that to Michael.

"It means it was not Michael's fault. And in no way yours. You hear me?"

Michael nods, but doesn't let the thought to sink in. It is his fault, nothing changes it. It's because of him they were on that crossroad. Lucifer's blood is on his hands.

******

Clang, crash and yelling were deafening. The panes snapped at once, sharp shards of glass dig into his skin everywhere they could get. Metal car body was gathering around them. Smells of burnt chemicals, gasoline and fire were suffocating. But all air had been already kicked out of his lungs by impact that threw him onto the panel. Or maybe panel wimbled into his chest first. He couldn't tell.

Michael tried to shift, but blackness started covering his eyes. He coughed trying to take a breath. Pain was yet hiding behind the shock and Michael reached to Lucifer. His brother wasn't moving. Noises went to the background and desperate pounding of blood in his ears was all Michael could hear.

He saw nothing. Heard only his own heartbeat. But he felt something besides the pain that took over him an less than a second. When he touched Lucifer's head his fingers sank into something warm and sticky... he didn't see, but he knew this something was red.

******

Uncle's voice brings him back to present.

"Uh... sorry, what were you saying?" he's heard only few words.

"I asked if you want to see him before the funeral," Zachariah repeats. He's never been this patient, not with Lucifer, it's almost surreal. "We could go to the funeral house right now."

Does he want to? Would it serve like some kind of closure? Michael doubts it, but he can't miss the opportunity to be alone with his twin for one more time.

"Really?" Michael asks to be sure.

"No, I'm just being a dick and making promises I have no intention to keep, you moron," and it's more like the uncle he knows.

"Love you too, uncle," he murmurs and bites his tongue as soon as those words leave his mouth. It's what Lucifer would say, not him, not Michael.

"Well, at least bits of your sarcasm are still intact," comments Zachariah. "So? Yes or no?"

"Yes," and once again Michael curses his resolve.

******

Michael couldn't fall asleep that night. Lucifer wasn't home yet and Michael had no idea where he was. But it wasn't his business how his brother spent his nights. Once he had an impression that it was. For a long time two separated rooms in their shared apartment served only pro forma.

He didn't know when and what exactly happened between them, but Lucifer could easily make Michael feel guilty about it. But rational part of him tried to convince him it's for the better. He was long past most obvious arguments about how wrong it was. But what he started to realize scared him. Lucifer didn't love him, not like Michael loved him. He knew it was childish to think this way, but it wasn't fair. Lucifer never played fair with him.

Michael saw it coming, but not so soon. He was ashamed of how much it affected him, how it didn't let him sleep peacefully at nights. He was too deep in this abyss he willingly jumped into and falling only further down.  
He heard a key turning and lock clicking. That was a moment he decided he had to run and not look back.

******

Michael is left alone in the small mortuary of the funeral house. He can hear uncle Zach talking to the owner upstairs. Surgical mask makes strong smell of embalming fluids a little more bearable. But it's hard to lift his eyes and see. His gaze is glued to iron table-legs and hanging white sheet as he carefully approaches not trusting his weakened body. He exhales warm breath into the cold air in this white room and finally forces himself to look.

It seems like the finishing touches has been just done. And Michael can swear it is not his twin brother lying dead on a metal table. As much as they were alike, Michael knew by heart every single tiniest little difference between them. Deadly calm face doesn't belong to Lucifer. It belongs to Michael. Logic tells him it's because sculptor used his photo to rebuild the face. But his treacherous heart asks him if he is so sure he is alive.

Truthfully Michael does feel like a ghost in someone else's body, it barely listens to him, it's clumsy and unfeeling for the most part. Before he can get lost in these thoughts he tears the mask down and acrid scent fills his nostrils and makes his head swim. Michael leans down and runs his hand through Lucifer's hair, kisses his temple and whispers into his ear:

"I hate you so much."

He swallows new tears, turns away and goes to the door. He doesn't look back. And he can hear a cheerful heartfelt _'Not as much as I hate you,'_ in the back of his head.


	3. Sepultura

Uncle leaves Michael home alone after asking if he needs anything. Michael needs but it isn't anything he could ask.

Raphael is at school. Dad has gone to the station to meet Gabe. Michael is glad he doesn't have to talk to any of them right now. 

Walk upstairs takes an eternity, it's only twelve steps, but he barely makes it. Nausea comes back, but his stomach is empty. So is his head, but it aches and throbs. Eight more steps to the door of his room. _Their_ room. Then that door with ever jammed lock, and it takes a lot of effort to turn the knob and finally enter.

He would just fall on the nearest bed if not for broken ribs and deceiving numbness of his limbs, but he has to sit first. He doesn't take time to look around, nothing could change here. But before he closes his eyes he realizes he lies in Lucifer's bed.

******

Michael was lying on his bed face down and worn out when Lucifer stumbled into the room. With a corner of his eye Michael notices clock showing almost half past midnight. Luce would get himself into trouble sooner or later. And probably would drag Michael down with him. Michael didn't feel like scolding him, but somebody had to.

"Couldn't you call and warn you'd be late?" his voice sounded muffled and forced. He was too tired to sound angry.

Lucifer didn't even acknowledge his effort. He just walked closer and practically fell atop of Michael. That awful habit of his. Why Michael's back was so comfortable for him?

"Get off, Luce, you're too cold," Michael complained.

Of course his insufferable twin didn't listen, just sneered and started running his freezing hands up and down Michael's arms, stealing his warmth mercilessly. When Michael made a sound suspiciously similar to a whimper Lucifer stopped. He nuzzled his hair and asked almost meekly:

"You won't tell Dad, will you?"

"No. No, I won't," promised Michael.

"Is it because you'll be in trouble too?" Michael felt Lucifer smiling into the back of his neck.

"Yes. Now get off and let me sleep."

"Love you, Mikey," he pressed a kiss to the back of Michael's head and finally got up. 

Half annoyed, half embarrassed Michael hid under the blanket, turned to the wall and tried to sleep. It would be so much easier if certain someone wasn't burning holes in his back.

******

He wakes up and cringes in pain. Doctor prescribed him painkillers, but he refused and now regrets it. But he would never want to depend on such thing. Nor would Lucifer... Damn it! Why does he come back to Lucifer from every single unimportant thought? And here pain actually helps, because when he sits up he doesn't think of anything at all.

Michael groans through clenched teeth and when it becomes more or less tolerable he hears steps and voices downstairs. He is sure it's Dad and Gabriel. Taking deep breath that echoes with more pain in his ribcage, Michael stands and shakes little remnants of sleep away. He could and should sleep more, rest is the best cure for concussion as the nurse in the hospital told him over and over. But he is thirsty too. So here it goes again: five steps, eight steps, twelve steps down the stairs which is arguably even harder than going up.

Seems like Dad and Gabe have moved to the kitchen. It's seven more steps. Walking sucks energy out of him, but simple arithmetic keeps his mind occupied. He doesn't even hear what they are talking about. Well... he doesn't really want to know. He doesn't care. 

But Michael does care when his eyes meet father’s, when he sees Gabriel for the first time in months. He looks a little different, Michael notices through his blurry sight. He's grown out his hair. But it's the slump of his shoulders, it makes him seem shorter than he really is.

"Hey," he says pathetically weakly. Lucifer sounded like this only once...

Gabriel rushes to him. Unlike Raphael’s his embrace is not careful, painful, but too warm to deny it. Michael hasn’t realized how cold he was.

"Lucy, I'm home," he whispers into his shoulder and Michael thinks he really needs to vomit.

******

Michael was doing his homework when Lucifer sat on the corner of his desk and closed his book without even asking if Michael was in the mood for a talk. But if Lucifer wanted attention he received it.

"What?" Michael glared knowing it had no effect on his brother.

"How long do you think Dad was thinking before naming us like that?" Lucifer asked but didn't let Michael answer. "I mean, Dad likes this kind of stuff. Symbolism... I've read his books, you know. All this yin and yang, angels and demons, good and evil..."

Michael himself had never risked opening any of Dad's novels, especially after Lucifer's colorful reviews of them, but he had an idea.

"You are overthinking this. Lucifer was a common name in the ancient Rome. And there was at least one saint Lucifer as I recall."

"You are such a nerd, Michael," Lucifer patted his head with a sigh of sympathy.

"Don't do that!" that only got his hair more ruffled. "What's your problem with your name all of sudden?"

"Not just with mine, with our names..." then he gave up and admitted, "Gabriel won't stop calling me Lucy," and then wouldn't stop screaming while Lucifer chased him around the house.

"You know you love it," Michael smiled at his twin.

"I do," admitted Lucifer. "Just don't you dare to tell that to the little shit."

And Michael never told. It became another secret just between two of them.

******

Time until the funeral has passed lowly and quickly. And emptily. Nobody bothered Michael or rather Lucifer, because Michael practically lost his touch with reality spending most of the time sleeping the concussion off in that room that held too many memories. Sometimes he scooted over to let somebody to sit on the bed. Through the haze he could recognize Raphael’s fingers in his hair or Gabriel’s hand on his shoulder. They barely talked, to him, to each other… But what was there to talk about?

He switched off the cellphone (Lucifer’s of course) as soon as he received the first message without reading it.

Those day and a half have been enough for Michael to feel… fine. He is okay. Just a bit dizzy. Walking up and down the stairs isn’t torture anymore. Of course he rejected help getting into the black suit. He dressed fast enough, avoiding looking in the mirror.

Michael buttoned up white ironed shirt and started tying black tie. Familiar but slowed down motions. And suddenly he looks up in the mirror, just one glance and he starts untying it. And then he repeats another sequence of movement, also familiar, painfully so, but...

******

Michael shook his head as he looked what an awful knot Lucifer had made. He had to take matter in his own hands, but almost broke a nail before he managed to loosen it and start over. But halfway he undone it and tried again and made Windsor instead of half Windsor.

"You made it different from yours. Why?" inquired Lucifer.

"I'm sick of people confusing us."

Lucifer pouted at that like Michael had just terribly offended him.

"But it's fun. You know, roses are red, violets are blue, and no one can tell me from you!" he sang-songed playfully.

"Not all roses are red and no violets are blue," murmurs Michael as he buttoned his jacket up.

"You're such a downer," Luce snorted. "They are going to confuse us anyway."

And they did. But Michael did it for himself and Lucifer didn’t need to know that.

******

Open coffin is placed in the parlor of the funeral house. Michael doesn’t need to look. He tries his best not too. He saw everything. He doesn’t need a reminder, he’ll never forget his brother, and the body in the oak casket doesn’t look him.

He politely accepts condolences from relatives and friends who had time to come. Michael is surprised to see some people. Like Dean Winchester. They never were that much of friends, more like rivals or at least Dean could turn everything into a competition. Michael tries to think of someone whom he really considered a friend aside from Lucifer. Sure, he talked to people, enjoyed their company, but when it came to sharing something really important it was always Lucifer.

"Son of the bitch," mutters Dean. "Can't believe he died."

Michael wants to ask what he cares. But it wouldn't be appropriate. Still, he wants to know. But he just says:

"Yeah, me too."

“How are you holding up, man?”

“I just don’t,” he says bluntly. There is simply nothing to hold onto. But he isn’t falling, he is in helpless null-gravity state.

“You’ll be fine,” Dean squeezes his arm slightly and steps away. Michael wonders how he can say that. He wouldn’t be. Why will Michael? But… didn’t he think that when he decided to leave? Only Lucifer was alive and Michael just needed time. It was different.

******

It wasn’t jealousy. Michael didn’t spy on Lucifer, didn’t read his messages, stopped asking him where, how and with whom he spent most evenings and sometimes whole nights. It was fear. Emptiness that grew inside made him realize that the bigger part of him belonged to Lucifer, was shaped by Lucifer, was Lucifer and Michael had no idea how to deal with it, so he didn’t.

Lucifer sat at kitchen table and sipped his cold tea, while Michael was washing dishes.

“Are we going to talk about it?” Lucifer asked.

“About what?” Michael replied not looking at his twin. He didn’t have anything to say.

Lucifer nodded, slammed his mug to the table and walked out of the kitchen. It obviously wasn’t an answer he expected to hear. But before when Michael still asked where he was or what he was doing Lucifer lashed out on him. Michael couldn’t understand what he wanted. But apparently it was something that Michael wasn’t able to give. And Michael gave up trying.

******

Michael can barely feel the weight of coffin on his shoulder. It shouldn’t be so easy to carry it. Should… shouldn’t… what does it matter?

It’s so wrong, that when he dies to, his grave will be apart from this one, probably far apart. He thinks he’d better be cremated.

Everyone is looking at Dad and he says nothing. Nothing at all. His expression is absent. Michael's head starts getting filled with thought that will make him hate himself even more later. If Dad only knew it's Lucifer there in the coffin, Michael is sure, he wouldn't stop talking. But he doesn't know that. Michael is dead for him and all he deserves is silence, so familiar reproachful silence. It never was a secrete that Lucifer was Dad's favorite. It doesn't shock Michael at all, that he meant this little to Dad. To everyone. And Michael cannot argue with that. He was supposed to have his skull crushed, not Lucifer. Everybody knows that and that's why nobody cares to look close enough at either of them to see the truth. And the funny thing is... should Michael say it right here right now nobody would take him seriously. They would blame this slip on his grief, his wounds, on anything. They have let Michael die, so why shouldn't Michael? It would be easier this way. He should let Lucifer live. He can't swap their places, can't sell his soul or anything like that, yet... he will do exactly that. He can become his twin for his family, for himself.

As the last red carnation is dropped on the varnish wooden surface Michael accepts that he is not Michael any longer. This body is shivering all over. It's very warm. Sun is high and shines brightly. There is no reason to feel so impossibly cold. None at all.


End file.
